Pratchett, Terry - The Truth

[oyceter]

Sketchy notes because I feel like I'm boring everyone with the Pratchett posts.

I skipped ahead a little because when I borrowed this, I was running out of the next in line for the Death and Witches and Guards books.

William de Worde starts printing the news tidbits he gathers, and soon, he and The Ankh-Morpork Times are embroiled in a conspiracy involving Lord Vetinari, the City Watch, and some very unpleasant moth-ball-sniffing people.

I was particularly interested in how Pratchett takes a sideways swipe at classism in this book, and I very much like how he dealt with William's privilege. I wish Sacharissima had more to do, though I liked her, and I was very surprised by how much I liked Otto by the end. My favorite part was probably the thunder of Ankh-Morpork finally booming at all the right places with Otto gleefully yelling, "And a castle!"

On a side note, this got me more interested in the Watch, and right now I'm reading Guards! Guards! and wondering how Vimes got to where he is in The Truth.

Fun, not my favorite Discworld book, but among the better ones.

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

This is one of my... hmm, maybe my ten or twelve favorite Pratchetts? A few reasons why:

The humorous vegetables.

The newspaper-specific humor, like the crank letters and Sacharissa's headlines, which I found killingly funny.

Otto, his comic persona, the reason for his comic persona, his explanation of Uberwald's psychotropic scenery, and his dark light photograph showing the shadow of William's father over William.

The light touch with serious issues.

The two assassins' meeting with Death.

[oyceter]

I love Otto so much! Particularly the psychotropic scenery and him.

I think I didn't like the two assassins as much because they reminded me too much of Vandermeer and Crouch from Gaiman's Neverwhere. That said, I have no idea which came first, given that Gaiman and Pratchett seem to be friends.

I think I was also a little less into it because I'm not that into newspapers and journalism, though I think on an objective level that it's a pretty good book.

[octopedingenue]

By now I've seen homageclones of Croupe & Vandemar as far away as Promethea and Amazing Spider-Man, of all places, so I have no idea who's riffing off whom and whether Gaiman and/or Pratchett made them up or riffed them off something else originally. I think by this point they're turning into a literary meme. Creepy viral-narrative meta assassins! Aaaahhhh!!

[oyceter]

Heee! Assassin meme!

I just flipped through Pratchett's Art of Discworld over the weekend (yay tachiyomi...) and he mentions that people keep asking if they were inspired by [blank]. And he says the duo archetype is so common that he doesn't even know where it's from.

[octopedingenue]

I love your Pratchett posts, please continue! They are giving me warm fuzzy feelings and I need to re-read the whole series soon.

I love the vampire photographer and his emergency vial so much.

Sam Vimes is one of my favorite characters ever. I started reading Discworld when I was about 10, and while I'd had characters I loved, Vimes was the first really respected. My weakness for cynical outsider world-weary vaguely-British secretly-squishy-in-a-calculating-bastard-sort-of-way copperguy types is all his fault. (In my head Vimes joins forces and prowls the streets with Josephine Tey's Inspector Alan Grant and Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brody, and the world is safe for puppies and kittens and prostitutes again.)

[oyceter]

I am really curious about Vimes! I am in the middle of Guards! Guards! and he doesn't feel much like the Vimes in The Truth, so it will be really neat reading the in-between books.

I love Otto so much as well! It is the geekiness. And the emergency vial. And how even though Pratchett gently pokes fun at various temperance movements, in the end, Otto not succumbing to temptation is presented as a good and brave thing. Also, I really love the last conversation between Otto and William ("Ve are still talking about you father?")

[octopedingenue]

I think you will enjoy Carpe Jugulum. I love the Discworld vampires! As much as Vimes claims to dislike them they are all so uniquely odd/lovable, which is neat since vampires are the Cookie-Cutter Gothic Trope Du Jour, and part of what I like of how Pratchett continues to poke at the fantasy trope of "all the members of this thinly veiled race/ethnic group alien/magical species are EXACTLY LIKE THIS, all the time!" I am looking forward to getting the newewst Discworld book from the library since I think it has Otto in it again!

Vimes is so tricksyawesome! It's hard to say "he grows up so much!" when he starts out already vaguely-middle-aged, but he does change a lot. As I would go along in the books that are in his POV, he'd seem like a Solid Brick Core Of Vimesness that doesn't change much at all; but then I'd hit an outsider POV or go reread earlier stuff and the differences would thwack me. He's a very thinky introvert and I get used to being in his POV headspace, and then he cameos in other-character-POV books and comes off much differently. Most of them come away not trusting/liking him at all. (Which is fun reading, because you know what they think of Vimes, and know what Vimes is probably thinking of them, and know what both of them are really like...)

Pratchett does POV-on-the-slant well. "This is a scene/book from the POV of Death or Vetinari or Granny Weatherwax or whatnot, and you'll get a sense of their personality and trains of thought, but you won't get their real secrets, or what they're really thinking..."

[oyceter]

Oh good! I greatly love vampires in general anyway, so I'm looking forward to poking at them.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

GUARDS! GUARDS!, to me, has a very different feel than the other Guards books--it's much more introverted, or something, maybe because there are fewer regular characters, and of course Vimes changes in the course of it.

[oyceter]

Oh huh, interesting! It did feel very different from Men at Arms, but I wasn't sure if that was because MaA has a lot more Carrot and a lot less Vimes.

[kate_nepveu]

Pratchett has said that he has trouble writing non-ass-kicking women, using Sacharissa as an example, because by the end of the book, she's holding weapons on people and saying "ing" and so forth.

I like this one because it's a how-things-work book, along with _Going Postal_. Someone in your comments called them the Industrial Age sub-series, and I think that's very apt and also sadly unusual in fantasy.

[oyceter]

I personally have no problem with his inability to write non-ass-kicking woman. Especially since his aren't always traditionally ass-kicking (Nanny Ogg!).

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

I really like the Pratchett posts! It's interesting for me to see someone come to them as a grown-up, since I was in the twelve to fourteen age bracket when I gobbled up everything available and can't dissociate Pratchett from the glee of finding masses of fun books in the library of my convent school.

That said, oh Vimes. I started out liking Carrot more, but seeing Vimes change is lovely. I don't think people change enough in Pratchett (one of my few complaints about him, I really like him) - Rincewind, for instance, makes me want to howl at the moon - but Vimes does. And what he changes into is so awesome, and yet so very informed by what he was. (Plus, Lady Sybil? Is made of win.)

I think you will love Going Postal. Miss Dearheart is my very favourite Pratchett heroine, and GP is very like The Truth, but improves on the formula. With added skulduggery!

Carrot is secretly a Mountie with a wolf

[octopedingenue]

I think a reason why Vimes and Carrot work so well (and why I love Carrot rather than being driven crazy by him) is in another story they'd be protagonist/antagonist trying to kill/supplant each other, but here they can't be bothered.

I too want to howl at Rincewind a lot.

[oyceter]

It's really weird coming to them knowing everyone else has read them!

I'm actually not that fond of Carrot, but that's largely because of Men at Arms and it's more a critique of his role as a character than with his actual personality if that makes sense.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I love your Pratchett posts! I mean, I always like book review posts, but they are even funner when it's a book I've read, and I've read all of the Discworld series.

[oyceter]

Cool! It's a little weird reading them knowing everyone else in the world (hee) has read them, but interesting too.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I like your Pratchett posts, but so far the ones you've been talking about are ones I read like ten or more years ago, so all I'd have to say is "er, I vaguely remember liking it?" XD

The Truth is one of my favorite stand-alones, second only to Going Postal. I like the stuff set in the city, whether it's Watch ones or stand-alones. Of all of them, though, Watch books are my top favorites. I love Vimes.

[oyceter]

Hee, that is ok! It's vaguely odd reading them and knowing that everyone else knows what's happened several books down, but interesting.

[theodosia.livejournal.com]

You've convinced me that it's time to reread this one. I find that they usually get better when I've read several more books along and go back.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I can definitely see them being good on reread, especially after knowing the characters better.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

The Watch books are my absolute favorites, because Vimes is so cranky, and I love it when he loses his temper.

[oyceter]

I was thinking I liked the Watch books a lot so far, but I just started Maskerade and was surprised by how much I missed the witches too!

[atuinsails.livejournal.com]

First, I like all of your book review/synopsis posts. I may not comment on every one of them, but I have actually made some book purchases based on them.

Second, I love Pratchett and love to "hear" other people talk about him.

Third, The Truth is one of my fave Discworld novels. Mostly because of Vimes (one of my favorite characters) and how he is seen by others in that setting. Also de Worde is also one of my fave characters (he shows up again in Going Postal and Monster Regiment (sp?)). His struggle to be the exact opposite of his father makes him one of the most sympathetic characters in the series. (BTW, I can't wait until you read Interesting Times -- it's all about classism.)

Happy Reading.

[oyceter]

Yay successful book recs!

Ooh, it'll be interesting to see de Worde develop more.